Brian Van Reet was born in Houston. Following the September 11th attacks, he left the University of Virginia, where he was an Echols Scholar, and enlisted in the U.S. Army as a tank crewman. He served in Iraq under stop-loss orders, achieved the rank of sergeant, and was awarded a Bronze Star for valor. He has twice won the Texas Institute of Letters short story award. Spoils is his first novel.
"Brian Van Reet's beautiful, intense, and at times disturbing novel
Spoils traces the motivations and desires of combatants on both
sides of the Iraq War, showing us what happens when increasing
violence and chaos start to warp the choices they're able to
make."--Phil Klay, author of Redeployment
A Wall Street Journal Top Ten Book of 2017
A Guardian Best Book of the Year
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
An Amazon Best Book of the Month
An Indie Next Pick "Original, deftly plotted and incisively
intelligent.... Van Reet occupies these sparring perspectives with
impressive balance and dispassion, avoiding the sense of victimhood
that often saturates fiction about American soldiers in Iraq.
Though the novel offers no pat resolutions, a strange and
surprising connection emerges between captive and captors."
--Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal
"Spoils is not just the well-described ambiance of the sand, heat,
rains and stench of war, with its course soldier talk and
extravagant weaponry--it's also a damn fine story.... In every war,
heroism is not just for those who win medals. Spoils is the story
of those who rise to small acts of valor while no one is
looking."
--Shelf Awareness
"A book of inescapable vows and unintended consequences.... SPOILS
moves into fresh territory.... The sensory depth and description of
place is perfect throughout.... This is a raw study in the ruin of
men. It's unapologetic and confessional, showing the flaws in
humanity just below the skin.... Every character fears failure,
isolation and powerlessness, the American occupation creating a
kind of universal captivity. Van Reet shows that no one wins a war
like this, and, at some point, everyone fighting in it knows."
--Washington Post
"A superb debut."
--The Guardian
"A wondrously nuanced book.... There is something deeply human
here--a story concerned first and foremost with the souls of those
who find themselves protagonists in history's darkest
chapters."
--Omar El Akkad, author of American War
"Clear, authentic and beautifully written, Spoils is a book about
war for people who don't like books about war. Van Reet gives us a
thriller that is not a thriller, but a grave and fierce description
of the moral battlefield behind the headlines from Iraq."
--Anne Enright, author of The Green Road and The Gathering
"Electrifying.... Spoils is a timely novel with striking relevance
to the current war in Syria, increasingly shaped and sustained by
foreign interests and intervention.... Van Reet paints a harrowing
picture of the dangers of propaganda and the true cost of
"collateral damage". At a time when political rhetoric is
exacerbating divisions worldwide, this is a novel with an urgent
message."--Economist
"I read this with awe. Spoils is a harrowing and incredibly
powerful debut which shows war in all its complexity and
viciousness and which attempts to humanize it through extraordinary
and conflicted characters. The female soldier Cassandra Wigheard is
superbly drawn and her relationship with the young Jihadist will
stay with me for a long time."
--Kate Atkinson, bestselling author of A God in Ruins
"In his debut novel, Brian Van Reet sets his characters on a
collision course amidst the chaos of the early stages of the Iraq
War.... As the story unfolds, flesh and convictions are pitted
against each other, drawing blood with every inch surrendered....
At its core, Spoils is a narrative of intertwining struggles, with
each character bound and trapped by the Iraq War in one way or
another. The storytelling is both intense and surreal.... In time,
Van Reet's Spoils may become a classic of the Iraq War."
--Foreign Policy
"In straightforward, often powerful prose, Van Reet captures the
Iraq War as Tim O'Brien did Vietnam.... Cassandra's captivity is
the focus of much of the novel, and Van Reet captures her
experience vividly and terrifyingly. Seeing the conflict through a
woman's eyes is a compelling approach and deserves
attention."--Booklist
"Moving immediately into the pantheon of first-rate war novels,
Spoils reads like a nightmare within a tragedy, a story that is
both touchingly classic and brutally modern. This is a definitive
record of the war that marked the end of the American Empire. One
of the best novels of our time in the Middle East."--Philipp Meyer,
author of The Son and American Rust
"Stunning.... It has the ring of absolute authenticity, and Van
Reet clearly articulates the violent mechanics of modern warfare.
But this is, above all, a human story, a psychological drama
between ideologically opposed captor and captive played out in the
fog of war. A powerful and compelling narrative."--Mail on
Sunday
"The brilliance of Brian Van Reet's Spoils lies not only in the
sheer forward-motion velocity of its plotting, but in the
psychological terrain it explores: what a generation of young women
and men went looking for in Iraq, what they found, and why that
discovery matters so profoundly for the rest of us."
--Anthony Giardina, author of Norumbega Park
"This vivid debut from a former soldier, about the capture of
marines from an Islamist militia, captures the valor, horror and
absurdity of conflict.... Van Reet's assured debut novel begins
with one of the best opening chapters I've read for ages.... The
strengths of this excellent book are all on show in these tight 15
pages: the vivid observation, the nuance of its character, the deep
familiarity with the processes of waging war.... Spoils feels not
only rewarding, but necessary."
--Guardian
"Van Reet's lean prose accommodates a laconic style suggesting
military reports and detail-rich context fed by a keen eye and
memory. He embeds the reader with the unwashed troops in a cramped
Humvee, in a dark cell where only screams penetrate, and in the
mind of a Muslim fighters with two decades of campaigning, a dead
son, lost wife, scant wins, and more doubts than faith can ease. A
fine piece of writing that should stand in the front ranks of
recent war novels."--Kirkus (starred review)
"Van Reet's unsettling tale is an authentic portrayal of combat
with its chaos, fear, and finality of death. It is also a sobering
commentary on war's brutality and the burning intensity of Iraq's
jihadist insurgency."--Publishers Weekly
"Vivid and fierce, Spoils is an eloquent exploration of humanity.
Depicting a world with no obvious villains or heroes, this novel is
as important as it is timely. By exploring the nuances of
motivation, loyalty, and sacrifice, Van Reet exposes the
connections that bind us across even the greatest divides."
--Virginia Reeves, author of Work Like Any Other
"With echoes of hit TV shows and movies from Homeland to Hurt
Locker, Van Reet's debut works equally well as a geopolitical
action-thriller and a literary novel.... But it also carries a
philosophical heft and emotional wallop.... Spoils is beautifully
written, too: Van Reet has a way of capturing the essential nature
of things in just a few words, expressive but tightly
wound."--Independent
"With Spoils Brian Van Reet has given readers an intensely moving
novel. That it is also a nearly comprehensive examination of our
modern wars is a remarkable demonstration of both the power and
relevance of fiction."--Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds
Ask a Question About this Product More... |